Convicted Pussy Riot members sent to "harshest" possible prison camps

The Guardian reported today that the two members of controversial punk band Pussy Riot who were convicted of hooliganism this past August will serve out their sentences in two of Russia's most grueling prison camps. Although prison officials refused to disclose precisely where Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova would spend the remainder of their two-year terms, Pussy Riot tweeted earlier today that Perm and Mordovia—the regions to which the women have been assigned—are home to "the harshest camps of all the possible choices." Among the possible options for the two women are facilities that used to be gulags and which, by most accounts, have not changed much since the Soviet era.

Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova had previously petitioned to serve out their sentences in Moscow, so that they could be closer to their families. (Both women have small children.) But the Russian justice system is obviously more concerned with confirming every negative stereotype ever associated with it.

The third member arrested after the group's now-infamous anti-Putin demonstration in Christ the Savior Cathedral on Feb. 21 was released on Oct. 10 on the grounds that she was arrested before she actually got to perform. The rest of the group, according to Pussy Riot, has fled the country.